ISIL has called for its followers to launch attacks on Bahrain, including on American military personnel stationed in the country ahead of a visit by the US defence secretary.
The appeal for violence came in a video that also urged militants to attack Bahrain’s Shiite majority amid a wider government crackdown on dissent there.
The slickly produced video surfaced as ISIL propaganda has waned with the group’s loss of territory in Iraq and Syria, where they are under attack by a US-led coalition that includes Bahrain.
In ISIL’s video, images of Bahraini fighter jets are juxtaposed with footage of an airstrike hitting an ISIL-held area. It also shows clips of a Bahrain-based Gulf Air plane, the King Fahd Causeway linking the island to Saudi Arabia and other sites in the capital, Manama.
“Wherever the enemies of Allah are found, there is jihad. Below you are the malevolent [Shiites] and the apostate soldiers of tyranny,” an ISIL fighter says in the video, according to a transcript provided by the US-based Site Intelligence Group, which monitors extremists.
“The muzzles of your weapons should not miss those American bases where from military aircraft took off to pour their flames on the monotheists in the territories of Islam,” the militant adds.
Bahrain is home to the US navy’s 5th Fleet, as well as a British naval base still under construction.
Bahrain’s government said on Thursday it “remains vigilant against terrorist activities and extremism”.
“Authorities continue to take all necessary steps to preserve security and stability within the kingdom.”
* Agence France-Presse
